Thoughts on books, reading and publishing from the staff and friends of the Tattered Cover Book Store.

Monday, January 28, 2013

Truth, Lies and Everything In Between

“F. Scott Fitzgerald said that there are no
second acts in American lives. I have no idea what that means but I
believe that in quoting him I appear far more intelligent than I am. I
don’t know about second acts, but I do think we get second chances,
fifth chances, eighteenth chances. Every day we get a fresh chance to
live the way we want.”

Finbar Dolan is lost and lonely. Except he
doesn’t know it. Despite escaping his blue-collar Boston upbringing to
carve out a mildly successful career at a Madison Avenue ad agency, he’s
a bit of a mess and closing in on forty. He’s recently called off a
wedding. Now, a few days before Christmas, he’s forced to cancel a
long-postponed vacation in order to write, produce, and edit a Super
Bowl commercial for his diaper account in record time.

Fortunately,
it gets worse. Fin learns that his longestranged and once-abusive
father has fallen ill. And that neither of his brothers or his sister
intend to visit. It’s a wake-up call for Fin to reevaluate the choices
he’s made, admit that he’s falling for his coworker Phoebe, question the
importance of diapers in his life, and finally tell the truth about his
past.

Truth in Advertisingis debut novelist John
Kenney’s wickedly funny, honest, at times sardonic, and ultimately
moving story about the absurdity of corporate life, the complications of
love, and the meaning of family.